<p>S applied to eleven schools. Two were reaches...rejected by one and waitlisted at the other. Of his six matches, he was rejected by two and accepted by four. He was accepted by all three of his safeties.</p>
<p>If we had this to do over, outside of not applying to the schools that rejected him (via crystal ball knowledge), I'm not sure we'd do it differently. Both the match rejections were a surprise. The "reachiest" of his match schools, William & Mary, accepted him.</p>
<p>S was undecided about what kind of school he wanted (large, small, local, distant, private, public). He ended up with seven acceptances ranging from free-ride public to full-pay private, and an Ivy waitlist. If the OP's kid can narrow down what s/he wants, applying to fewer is great, but our way worked for our family.</p>
<p>My daughter applied to eight schools and was accepted by all. One was a reachy-match considering only test scores, but she has a lot of other attributes that made her a strong candidate. Two were state schools, which made them financial safeties--if absolutely nothing else had worked out, with an austerity budget we could have paid full costs out of current income. Two others were schools we considered merit-aid safeties, but the final award packages from her three favorites (all wonderful schools where she did not receive merit aid) still put our share of the bill at about the same as for the merit schools (and surprisingly, they're all about the same net cost to us as the state schools). She was interested in a couple of reaches early on, but as she visited and interviewed, she narrowed down to "the three" as her prime choices and saw no reason to bother applying to schools that she liked less than her favorites but had less of a chance of admission. Like others have mentioned, if we had known how it would shake out, she could have eliminated several applications (and app fees, test score and CSS Profile report charges, etc.), but, truth be told, she did the last applications mostly to appease my late January jitters.</p>
<p>2 safe matches: accepted at both
1 match: accepted
2 reachy matches: waitlisted at both
2 reaches: accepted at 1, rejected by 1
3 big reaches: waitlisted at 1, rejected by 2</p>
<p>Quirky kid with good SAT's, uneven grades, and musical talent. Had no idea how schools (mostly small LAC's) would weigh his strengths and weaknesses. Outcome had both disappointments and pleasant surprises, but overall made us feel that we'd chosen well and certainly not too many nor too few schools.</p>
<p>I'm not advocating D's elections, but for purposes of discussion --
eight applications, all matches:
(3) schools in her home region that she really liked
(2) schools on the opposite coast that she really liked
(2) schools because her friends applied there
(1) school because her parents requested she apply</p>
<p>D's "reach" was financial aid, of which she needed lots (none of the loan variety).</p>
<p>D. applied to six; she had originally decided 7 but dropped one when she realized she had no interest whatsoever in going there.</p>
<p>Two were absolute safeties given her stats, three matches, and one reach given her math scores were about at the 25th for the school. One of her "matches" is really a reach since it is Stanford, and she did not get in there or her reach. She had four choices and was thrilled with three of the four.</p>
<p>My daughter planned to apply to 13: 2 safeties, 4 matches, and 7 reaches.
She was accepted ED to her first choice and had to withdraw the other 10 apps she had already submitted. She wasn't very happy that I had pushed her to get all of her applications completed prior to hearing the ED decision.</p>
<p>My D applied to 4 - one safety and 3 others that she thought she would like - one being her top choice from the start. She wanted a small school, close to home so 3 fell in that category. The 4th (the safety) was close to home but larger - she really had no clear desire to go there but that school offered full tuition so we kept in on the list "in case". </p>
<p>Personally, I don't understand why some people apply to so many - that would just make the whole experience even more mind boggling than it already is to me...rank was not important to her or us - a good, sound education without going totally broke was. </p>
<p>The only thing I wish we had done was apply to one more school very similar to her top choice (private, small, well-respected in her area of interest) in the same tuition range so that we could have possibly had more leverage to negotiate finaid.</p>
<p>DD's original list was three schools...one safety and two matches. We asked her to apply to one school that was near home (all the others were far away) and she agreed if we would allow her to apply to one reach. So five altogether...1 reach, 2 matches, and 2 safeties (the one close to home was very attainable). To be honest, we should have just let it go at the first three.</p>
<p>1 excellent state flagship (especially well regarded in his field of study) with rolling admissions: acceptance in Oct with a lot of money. Took the pressure off.</p>
<p>2 reaches. Accepted at both, some money at one, lots of money at the other</p>
<p>DS applied to 5 - would have applied to less, but we were fishing for some merit money.
3 safeties (big state U's, w/ auto top ten percent acceptance) in one with full-ride and honors, in with 1/3 tuition and honors, in flagship with approx. 2/3 tuition and honors 1 private match: in with $13,000 merit
1 private reach: in with no merit aid, but good financial aid.
DS is making his decision in the next few days, since he is visiting private reach campus now. Will probably choose it. :)</p>
<p>D wasn't really trying to follow the formula, but did apply to 9 -3 reaches, 3 matches, 3 safeties. In retrospect, she should have left off 1 reach, 1 match and 2 safeties.</p>
<p>I applied to three safeties (accepted x3), two matches (waitlisted, rejected), and five reaches (accepted, waitlisted x3, rejected). I was an international financial aid applicant from a US high school, though, so my situation was a bit different.</p>